The Domino Pattern

SIXTEEN

I half expected Bayta to be waiting for me when I returned to my compartment, her eyes blazing, her arms folded across her chest, demanding to know what I’d been off doing. But she wasn’t. Apparently, the server Spider at the bar hadn’t sold me out. Yet. Five minutes later I was climbing into bed, sleep tugging at my eyelids and my brain.

But even as I adjusted the blankets around my shoulders, I had a nagging sense that something significant had happened this evening. Something so subtle that I hadn’t picked up on it on a conscious level.

For a minute I fought against sleep, trying to get a handle on the feeling and whatever it was that had sparked it. But it was an uphill battle, and after that single minute I knew it was hopeless. Tomorrow, when I’d caught up on my sleep, I would make another effort to track it down.

Once again, tomorrow arrived earlier than I’d expected it to.

And yet, at the same time, it nearly didn’t arrive at all. At least for me.

I’d been asleep barely two hours when I was jarred awake by something soft and vague; a distant, eerie whistling sort of sound that was as much felt as it was heard. For a handful of heartbeats I lay still, my eyes wide open in the darkness, my ears straining against the silence as I waited for the noise to come again.

But it didn’t. I’d just about decided it had been an artifact of my sleeping brain when I heard another sound.

Only this one wasn’t vague and ethereal the way the first had been. This one was real, solid, and very close at hand.

Someone was scratching on my door.

I rolled silently out of bed and into a crouch on the floor, fighting against the mental cobwebs as I tried to figure out just what in hell was going on. There was a perfectly good door chime out there, not to mention equally good hard surfaces all around that anyone with working knuckles could knock on. There was no reason why whoever was out there should be scratching away like a pet malamute who wanted back into the house.

Unless he was too weak or too sick to do anything else.

I slid my hand along the floor until I found my shoes. I picked up one of them, getting a good grip on the toe. Holding it over my head like a club, I walked silently to the door and keyed the release.

To find that no one was there.

Frowning, I stepped out into the corridor and looked both directions. No one was visible along the car’s entire length.

But someone had been there. At the rear of the car, the vestibule was just closing.

My first thought was that whoever this was, he must have exquisite timing to have been able to get out of sight just as I was opening my door. My second thought was that whatever game he was playing, it probably boiled down to being a trap.

My third was that there was no way in hell he was going to get away from me.

I ducked back into my compartment, grabbed my other shoe and my shirt and headed out after him, making sure my door closed and locked behind me. I got my shoes on as I jogged down the corridor, and by the time I reached the vestibule I had my shirt on as well. Bracing myself, I keyed the door release.

The vestibule was empty. I crossed it and opened the door to the next compartment car, again preparing myself for whatever lay beyond it. But again, the corridor was empty. Hurrying past the closed compartment doors, I went through the vestibule and into the first of the first-class coaches.

Compartment cars didn’t really lend themselves to ambushes, given that the only place you could launch one from was one of the compartments themselves. But coach cars were another matter entirely, as I’d already learned the hard way on this trip. Most of the seats scattered around the car were canopied, their occupants long since in dreamland, though there were a couple of quiet conversations still going on in various corners. But none of the conversationalists were near my path, and in fact didn’t seem to even notice my presence, and I continued on through and into the dining car.

And nearly ran into my old Modhran pal Krel Vevri as he staggered out into the corridor from the bar end. “Compton,” he breathed as he stepped into my path.

“Did you just scratch on my door?” I demanded, coming to a halt in front of him.

For a moment he just stared at me in silence, his body weaving a little, his eyes apparently having a hard time focusing on me. To all appearances he was as drunk as a goat. “Compton,” he said again. “There’s trouble.”

I felt a tingle go up my back. Drunk Juriani nearly always slurred their words. Vevri wasn’t doing that. Stepping close to him, I leaned forward and sniffed his breath.

One whiff was all it took. Any alcohol he might have poured into his system earlier that evening had been burned away hours ago. Whatever had put Vevri into this state, it wasn’t anything the Spiders had served him.

Our poisoner had struck again.

“Understood,” I said, taking his arm and trying to turn him around toward the dispensary three cars back. “Come on—we’ll get the Spiders to call a doctor—”

“No doctor,” he interrupted, throwing off my grip with an unexpected burst of strength. “Hypnotic—dizzy, but not in danger.”

“We should at least try to figure out what it was,” I insisted, trying to get a grip on his arm again. “Or wasn’t it you?” I added as it belatedly occurred to me that Vevri himself might be completely unscathed, that the hypnotic or whatever might have been administered to one of the other walkers and merely be affecting the Juri via their shared mind.

But once again, he pulled away from my grip. “Not in danger,” he insisted. “The prisoner. He’s the one in danger.”

I stared at him. “Emikai? What does the killer want with him?”

“Don’t know,” Vevri said. He wobbled suddenly and had to grab the edge of the archway to regain his balance. “Don’t call Spiders. Warn him—warn him off. Never find him then.”

I looked over his shoulder down the corridor. “Did you see the killer?” I asked Vevri. “The killer, Krel Vevri. Did you see who he was?”

Vevri shook his head. “He’s on his way. Already on his way. You must stop him.”

“Yeah,” I said, gazing hard into the Juri’s face.

And not believing it for a second, because this whole thing stunk to high heaven. Even if I actually trusted the Modhri—which I damn well didn’t—it would still smell like a setup.

But I had no choice but to play along. If the killer really did want Emikai silenced, for whatever reason, the Filly was a sitting duck back there. The two twitters on duty might get a glimpse of the killer, but that would be pretty small comfort to Emikai himself.

Besides, knowing it was a setup gave me certain advantages, especially if the killer didn’t know I knew. “Okay, I’ll go take a look,” I said to Vevri. “You stay here and keep an eye out in case he doubles back.”

Vevri nodded. “I will. Good luck.”

Slipping past him, I continued on my way. Knowing you were walking into a trap could definitely be helpful in beating that trap.

But it never hurt to also hedge your bets.

I had covered another two cars and was passing the line of shower compartments before I finally ran into a conductor tapping his way along on some errand or another. “Hey—you,” I said, catching up to him. “You—Spider.”

“Yes?” he said.

“I want you to call Bayta,” I said. “Tell her I’ve had word that Logra Emikai is in trouble, and I’m heading back to check on him—”

“Bayta is asleep.”

“Then wake her up,” I snarled. “Tell her I want her to do a running track on me—conductors, servers, mites, and anyone else who’s available. You got that?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Good.” I started to go, then turned back. “And she’s to stay put,” I added firmly. “Whatever happens, she’s to stay in her compartment and not open the door. For anyone.”

“Yes,” he said.

I gazed hard into his silvery globe for another moment, the way you might underline the seriousness of an order if you were talking to a real, actual person, then turned and resumed my jog. If Bayta could mobilize enough of the Spiders to monitor the action, we had a chance of bringing this thing to an end right here and now.

The baggage car seemed quiet enough as I slipped through the vestibule doorway into the gloom. Setting my back against the nearest stack of crates, I paused for a moment to take stock of the situation. No shadows seemed to be moving out there, at least none that I could see from my current vantage point, and I could hear nothing above the muted clickity-clack of Quadrail wheels.

Was the killer still here? Or had he been and gone, leaving a fresh corpse where I’d earlier tied up a prisoner?

Only one way to find out. Taking a deep breath, I headed off through the maze of stacked crates.

The attack came without any warning, in spite of all the care I had been taking with corners and crate tops. An arm suddenly appeared from behind me, snaking around my neck and yanking me backward. I tried to twist sideways, to get my throat turned into the crook of his elbow where there was a little extra space, but he was already on it, his other hand snapping up to link into his choking arm and simultaneously push the back of my head forward.

Reflexively, I kicked backward. But my foot hit only air, and before I could bring it back for another try a foot slapped into the back of my other knee, just hard enough to break my balance.

And barely a second after the attack had begun, I found myself kneeling on the floor, the tiny prickly hairs of a Filly snout pressed against my right cheek, his chokehold ready to squeeze the life out of me.

I tried to reach up toward his head, in hopes of reaching his eyes or ears. But the arms wrapped around my throat and head blocked any such path. I switched direction and jabbed backwards with my elbows, landing solid blows against his torso. He grunted with the impact, but his grip didn’t loosen.

So this is how it ends, the thought flitted through my mind as I continued my futile efforts to break my attacker’s grip. I wondered distantly what Bayta would do without me, and what the Chahwyn and Spiders would do after I was dead.

It was only then that it belatedly dawned on me that the arm pressed against my throat, which should have been squeezing ever tighter, cutting off my air and choking the life out of me, was doing no such thing. In fact, it wasn’t all that tight even now, more of a controlling hold than a killing one.

Was he just waiting so that I would sweat some more? Or did he genuinely want to keep me alive, at least until he could get something else out of me?

Bracing myself, painfully aware that if I was wrong, it would be the last gamble I ever made, I brought my pummeling hands and elbows to a halt.

He didn’t press his attack. But he didn’t let go, either. He just stood there, towering silently and motionless behind me.

I cleared my throat, which turned out to be a lot harder in my present condition than I’d expected. “If you’re trying to make a point,” I croaked out, “consider it made.”

“What point is that?” he asked.

I grimaced as I recognized his voice. My assailant was none other than Logra Emikai himself. “That you’re the greatest escape artist since Houdini?” I suggested.

“That I could have killed you,” he corrected. Abruptly, the pressure against my throat disappeared as he let go of me and stepped backward. “And that I did not,” he added.

I turned my head, massaging my throat as I looked up at him. He was just standing there, his arms hanging loosely as his sides, gazing back at me. “Interesting demo,” I commented, getting back to my feet. “Of course, as has already been noted, you’re on a super-express Quadrail with nowhere to run. Killing me would be kind of stupid.”

“Agreed,” he said. “But he who freed me apparently was not concerned with such questions of logic.” He paused. “He who freed me, then ordered me to kill you.”

“Did he, now,” I said as casually as I could. So our killer was starting to sharecrop his business. “Did this helpful passerby have a name or face?”

“I’m certain he had both,” Emikai said grimly. “Unfortunately, I was asleep when he freed me.”

“And when he gave you your marching orders?” I asked, frowning. “What did he do, leave a voice message in your dreams?”

“You are actually not far off,” Emikai said, for the first time seeming a little uncertain. “The words came to me in …it’s hard to describe. It was a distant, whistling sort of voice. I’m afraid I cannot explain it more clearly than that.”

“That’s okay,” I assured him, a prickling sensation running up my back. A distant, eerie whistling sort of sound was the way I’d characterized my own recent wake-up call. “How long ago did all this happen?”

He shrugged. “An hour. Perhaps a bit more.”

Just enough time, in other words, for someone to make his way back up to the front of the train, dose a sleeping Modhran walker with hypnotic so that he could play shill for me, and call me awake so he could send me to my death.

In fact, with this added bit of information, the late-night conversations I’d noticed as I passed through first class suddenly took on an entirely new aspect. Odds were that one of those conversations had been the killer talking to one of the Modhri’s other walkers, getting ready to feed Krel Vevri’s lines to him by remote control. That was a capability of the group mind that had never occurred to me. “So why didn’t you kill me?” I asked.

Emikai snorted. “I do not murder on anyone’s demand,” he growled.

“Glad to hear it,” I said, rubbing my throat again. “So what now? We let bygones be bygones and I let you go back to your nice comfy Quadrail seat?”

He cocked his head. “Do you think that would be wise?”

My estimate of his competence, which had already been pretty high, rose a couple more points. Most citizens would have leaped at the offer. But Emikai was either more thoughtful or more canny than that.

Which led directly to the bigger question of who or what this horse-faced enigma was, and whose side he was on. If anyone’s. “Unfortunately—unfortunately for you, anyway—no, I don’t,” I said. “I’m thinking it could be highly interesting to see what kind of reaction we get when I not only don’t turn up dead, but you turn up back in irons.”

“I expected you would say that.” Emikai looked around us. “I presume this time you will have watchers present in the event that he attempts this again?”

“Absolutely,” I promised, keeping my voice even. “If you’re ready, let’s go ahead and reset the stage.”

He eyed me another moment, then nodded. “Very well,” he said.

Five minutes later, with Emikai once again tied to his perch, I was on my way back to the front of the train. And this time, I was moving with a lighter, quicker step.

Because though Emikai didn’t know it, there had been watchers present during his abortive rescue: the two twitters Bayta had left on guard.

It was going to be highly interesting to find out what exactly they’d seen.

What they’d seen, it turned out, was exactly nothing.

“That’s impossible,” I growled, glaring at Bayta from my seat at her computer desk as she sat stiffly on the edge of her bed. “You left them there. You ordered them to watch. How can they not have seen something?”

“I don’t know,” Bayta said. Her voice was as stiff as her posture. “They just froze up, somehow.”

“How does a Spider freeze up?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Bayta repeated tartly. “Something happened to them. Something I’ve never heard of happening before.”

I stared at her …and then my fatigue-numbed brain finally got it. Bayta hadn’t gone all stiff and angry because she was mad

She wasn’t angry. She was scared.

“Okay,” I said, forcing the frustration out of my voice. This was no time for emotion of any sort. “Let’s start at the beginning. When did this blank spot happen?”

“As near as we can tell, just under two hours ago,” Bayta said, her voice still stiff but sounding marginally calmer now that I was no longer yelling at her. “About the same time Logra Emikai says someone cut him free of his bonds.”

“And it knocked out both Spiders so that they didn’t see anything?”

“It didn’t exactly knock them out,” Bayta said hesitantly, frowning out into space as if looking for the right words. “It was more like they had been looking somewhere else and …is ‘spaced out’ a correct English term?”

“It is indeed,” I assured her. “Did they notice anything unusual happening just before or during this brain freeze?”

“How could they notice anything during the brain freeze?” Bayta asked patiently. “They were incapacitated.”

“I know they were,” I said. “But they’re telepathically linked to the rest of the Spiders, and I assume no one else was affected.”

“No, no one else was affected,” Bayta said, shaking her head. “But the two twitters were somehow disconnected from the rest of the Spiders during that time.”

“And no one noticed that?”

She shrugged. “The Spiders aren’t a group mind,” she reminded me. “They’re not connected that tightly.”

I grimaced. And even if someone had noticed, they probably wouldn’t have done anything. That wasn’t the way Spiders did things. “Well, it’s certainly not the first dead end we’ve hit in this case,” I said. “At least we’ve proved now that Logra Emikai isn’t our killer.”

“Have we?” Bayta countered. “Couldn’t this have just been an elaborate plan on his part to deflect suspicion away from him?”

“Hardly,” I said. “The whole story about being ordered to kill me implies that his midnight visitor thought he would be willing to do the dastardly deed, which implies a relationship of some sort with said midnight visitor. That actually puts him closer to the center of this mess than he would have been if he’d just stayed put like a good little prisoner. It’s more likely that the real killer was hoping this would muddy the waters by throwing some of the suspicion onto Emikai.”

“Or hoped Logra Emikai would kill you,” Bayta said quietly.

“There is that,” I conceded. “Fortunately, he couldn’t be present to either encourage or assist. He had to be up here pulling Vevri’s strings.”

“Yes,” Bayta said, her voice chilling a bit. “Let’s talk about Krel Vevri, shall we?”

I took a deep breath. For a while I’d considered keeping my deal with the Modhri private, knowing that Bayta probably wouldn’t take the news very well. But down deep, I’d known all along I couldn’t do that. Bayta was my ally and my friend, and it would be neither safe nor fair for me to cut her out of something this important.

Besides, I could still see the quiet pain that had flooded into her eyes when she’d learned I’d held out on her about the Chahwyn’s new defender-class Spiders. I wasn’t about to go through that twice in one trip.

So as she sat still and silent on her bed, I told her all about it.

I was prepared for her to be stunned, or aghast, or outraged. I wasn’t prepared for her to be quietly unreadable. “So there is a mind segment aboard,” she said when I’d finished. “I’d always thought there probably was.”

“It seemed a reasonable deal to make,” I said, still trying to figure out what was going on behind that emotionless face. “This may be our only chance of getting fresh information on this case.”

“And you’d rather work with the Modhri than let a killer escape punishment?”

“This isn’t an ordinary killer, Bayta,” I reminded her. “He’s figured out how to commit quiet, subtle murder on a Quadrail. Not just beat someone to death with his bare hands, which we’ve seen before, but real, genuine, untraceable murder.” I waved a hand. “Not to mention that he’s also got a technique for freezing or otherwise incapacitating Spiders. You think the Chahwyn will want him getting away with all that?”

“It doesn’t really matter what the Chahwyn wants, does it?” she countered. “You’ve already made the decision.” She eyed me. “But there’s a possibility you haven’t mentioned. What if it was the Modhri himself who was responsible for what happened with Logra Emikai and the twitters?”

“And, what, he committed all the murders, too?” I asked. “Two of the victims being his own walkers? Why would he do that?”

“To get us killed,” Bayta said quietly. “To get you killed. Maybe the reason he volunteered to help us was to set you up for a thought virus that would make sure you went back to the baggage car after he freed Logra Emikai.”

I grimaced. There was some sense in that theory, I had to admit. More sense than I liked. Especially when you tossed in Bayta’s speculation earlier in the trip that the Modhri might slowly be going crazy. “If that’s the case, his reaction tomorrow when I turn up alive ought to be interesting,” I said. “His explanation for what happened tonight ought to be interesting, too.”

Bayta seemed to draw back. “You’re not going to go on with this whole thing, are you?”

“I don’t see that I have a choice,” I said. “No matter who’s behind the murders, the Modhri or someone else, the fact remains that someone has figured out a way to get poison aboard a Quadrail. If it wasn’t the Modhri, he may be able to help us figure out how it was done. If it was the Modhri, he might let something slip while he’s pretending to assist us. Either way, I have to play it out.”

Bayta’s throat worked. “I suppose you’re right,” she said reluctantly. “You won’t do anything more until morning, though, will you?”

I thought about pointing out that, technically, it was morning. But she didn’t seem in the mood for that sort of whimsy. “No,” I promised. “No matter who comes scratching on my door.”

“And we’ll be going together?”

I winced. She hadn’t added this time to her question, but I could hear it anyway. “Of course,” I assured her.

“All right.” She took a deep breath. “Then we should probably get some sleep now.”

Apparently, the conversation was over. “Agreed,” I said, standing up and stepping past the folded-up divider into my own compartment. “I’ll see you in the morning.” I reached for the divider control.

“Maybe you should leave it partly open tonight,” she said.

So that we could be better able to protect each other? Or so that I would have a harder time running off somewhere without her again?

Or had this whole thing so spooked her that she just wanted the sense of a little company close at hand?

“Sure,” I said. Touching the control, I let the divider close to about half a meter, then tapped the control again to stop it. “Pleasant dreams,” I called through the opening.

“Good night, Frank,” she called back.